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Social Impacts of IT Wikia
Welcome to the Social Impacts of Mobile Devices Wiki This wiki is about the social impacts that IT has created, In particular the social impacts of mobile devices such as: smartphones, laptops and netbooks. In this wiki I will also be talking about the different types of communication people use IT for in todays society and the dangers and hazards surrounding IT. CONTENTS: Introduction/Home Laptops Netbooks Smartphones thumb|left|500px|An interesting video on the social media revolution. Describe your topic INTRODUCTION IT is a very fast growing industry and is going at a pace most people can't keep up with. It is constantly changing with new ideas and technology breakthroughs. With this new technology comes new dangers and threats which the world of IT has created. Nearly everything in today's society relies on IT! If all of the computers suddenly stopped working the world would go into breakdown. SOCIAL IMPACTS IT has made the world we live in today a lot easier just think about the things we can simply do that would have taken a lot more effort and time to do without IT. *Sending and receiving messages - Before IT and computers, people would have to wait weeks, maybe even months to receive messages from friends and other places. Now if we want to send a message to our friends we can simply, call them from a mobile or telephone, text them, email them or instant message them! You can even keep in touch with people on the other side of the world for free! Social networking sites, email or instant messaging, without having to wait months for replies. *Finding out information - If we wanted to find out information in the past we would have to go to a library and search for a book on a particular subject, use our own knowledge of what we already know or ask people. Now all we have to do is type in the information we require into a search engine and press enter and search through the filtered pages to find the answer. It's as easy as that! You can find out store opening/closing times, phone numbers and addresses, information on literally any subject! *Online Banking - Banking is now easier than ever! The only thing you can't do with online banking is withdrawing physical cash, but in this day in age that's not that important as most things can be paidd for by using things like credit/debit cards, PayPal or internet banking. There are a lot of useful things you can do with internet banking such as see statements online, manage your money by transferring to another account, create e savings account to save money etc. *Online Gaming - Most children now days have either heard of or are somewhat involved in online gaming. This includes things such as Xbox live, PlayStation network, Steam and other things like World of Warcraft. This has had a big impact on our society as children are spending more time gaming than they are going out and socialising in real life. MUSIC INDUSTRY EVOLUTION AND CHANGES Just look at the music industry: first they recorded songs onto vinyl records, then it was tapes, then it was CD's and now most people just download MP3 files over the internet! These changes all took place in about 40-50 years, which may sound a long time but to change from 4 different ways of listening to and recording music in that amount of time is ground breaking and radical! Just think about how we could be listening to music in the next 10, 20 or even 30 years!? Not only did the way in which music was recorded and sold change, the devices used to play music drastically changed within that time period. The devices went from record players to mp3 players! Both completely different devices, for a start a record player isn't portable at all! and has moving parts. An MP3 player was made for portability and has no moving parts at all! COMMON IT COMMUNICATION TYPES Things like: laptops, notebooks and smartphones have created a revolution in the way people communicate! Here are some of the common ways in which people communicate in todays society: *Texting - This has been around since the mid to late 90's, it's basically a means of fast and simple communication via mobile phones and smartphones. Very useful when replying or asking simple questions to people you are close with, such as friends and family. It's not very formal and a lot of young people use 'text speak'. This is basically a shortened down language, where people miss out vowels and un-important letters, or use numbers instead of using letters. To be able to text faster thus getting the message across faster. *Email - Basic Email has been around for ages! But has only been used and available to the mainstream since the 90's. It is a way to send digital mail to other people using the internet. As long as you have an email account, computer (or Smartphone) and an internet connection you will be able to email other email accounts and contacts. Email can be a formal or informal means of contact It's very versatile as you can send: text, images, videos, music files and any other type of document or file that can be stored on a computer. This make email a very good means of communication, as you can write a letter and attach a CV to apply for jobs or you can send a picture and a funny comment to your friend. *Instant Messaging - This is the most recent means of communication compared to the other two types above. Instant Messaging can be used on computers by using software such as: Windows Live Messenger or Facebook Chat etc. or on smartphones software such as: BBM for Blackberry's. Instant Messaging is a bit like texting but you can send a receive messages a lot faster! Almost 'Instantly!'. You can also tell when the other person in the conversation is writing back to you which improve the experience. It's almost like a real time conversation as you can get messages across very easily and receive messages back really fast, so it's good when talking to friends and family. DANGERS AND POTENTIAL THREATS OF IT The IT revolution isn't all good though, it has brought around many security issues and hazards. Unless you really know your stuff with computers and IT, you could be at risk from internet crime. Where things like: stolen credit card details, usernames/passwords and other personal details can be stolen very easily. If your home network is wireless and unsecured with no password you are at risk of internet crime and extremely vulnerable. Another security issue if the parents don't know much about IT and computers is: 'Online predators!' The people most at risk are children and teenagers, mostly female but can be male too. The problem usually occurs when children/teenagers are on social networking sites, chat sites, instant messaging software or using email and even texting! If they choose to accept friend request from people they don't know or start talking to random strangers using these websites and devices, potentially it could be very dangerous. Junk mail or spam messages can also be dangerous and very annoying! Most email account providers have combatted this security risk and annoyance, by re-directing unwanted and potentially harmful messages directly to your junk mail folder; This also helps prevent your inbox from being clogged up by junk mail. Viruses are probably one of the most common threats that IT has generated. These can occur by downloading unsafe files off of the internet, or by clicking on pop-ups or by visiting un-secure websites etc. They can be very dangerous and clog up your computer full of Malware, Spyware, Trojans and Cookies etc. (They are all types of harmful viruses). They will slow down your computer and make it un-functional; They can also corrupt files and even whole operating systems! There are things you can do to prevent this. Make sure you surf the web safely and stick to well know websites, purchase and download internet security software such as: Mcafee or Norton. Doing this will help prevent viruses from corrupting your computer and stealing your personal details. Here is a video talking about the risks of using the internet and how to prevent you from being a victim of internet crime: thumb|left|372px|An interesting video showing examples of cyber crime. Here is another video from Dateline NBC's 'To Catch a Predator'. This shows how dangerous it can be for children and young teenagers on the internet, particularly on chat sites. thumb|left|406px|A video showing how dangerous internet chat sites can be for children and young teenagers Latest activity Category:Laptops Category:Smartphones Category:Netbooks Category:Browse